The WHL Arena Guide - Weyburn Colosseum, Weyburn Red Wings

Tiny Weyburn is one of the smallest cities ever to host major junior hockey. As mentioned elsewhere on this website, the first couple of seasons of WHL hockey were contested by teams that were decided more by who would rebel and join rather than what cities made the most economic sense, and the SJHL Red Wings were willing to make the jump, so for the first two seasons of the WHL, the Red Wings played at the highest level. Weyburn still has a junior team called the Red Wings and they still play at the Weyburn Colosseum, but obviously their sojourn into major junior didn't last - they dropped back into the SJHL along with the Moose Jaw Canucks and Regina Pats in 1968.

Crescent Point Place, as it's now known, sits on the northwestern fringe of town, adjacent to ball fields and a community hockey rink. It was built in 1960 but looks newer, with a renovated front end facade obscuring what I assume was the original one. It looks too small to be a major junior rink, and it is - with a capacity under 2000, it's easily one of the smallest permanent major junior arenas in the CHL's history. Inside, once through the new lobby, the age of the place shows. There's only seating along the sides of the rink; seven rows of red bench seats and that's it. The building is doused in red and white paint, much as Joe Louis Arena was for the namesake big Red Wings, and there's memorabilia everywhere.

From the WHL's early rebel league years, the Weyburn Colosseum is one of the only remaining arenas still hosting the same team in the same building. The Red Wings have been ever-present in Weyburn since 1961, and the only thing remarkable about the rink from the perspective of this website is that they played in the WHL for two of those seasons. Weyburn is a footnote in the WHL's history, and the WHL is equally a footnote in the history of the Weyburn Red Wings. But the Colosseum still stands, hosting the team, and it's one of the grand old barns of today's SJHL.